Generally, in a magnetic disk recording apparatus using a magnetic disk medium, signals such as servo signals to position tracks on which a variety of information is recorded, address signals to identify the tracks, and reproduction clock signals need to be reproduced even if no data is recorded. Accordingly, to enable reproduction of such signals, pre-formatting is performed at the time of manufacturing the magnetic disk medium.
To perform pre-formatting accurately with high efficiency, a magnetic transfer method is widely known in which magnetic patterns that are carried on master media are then transferred onto magnetic disk media.
A magnetic transfer device that performs magnetic transfer simultaneously on both surfaces of a magnetic disk medium has a pair of holders to hold the master media such that the magnetic disk medium is tightly sandwiched between those master media. Then, by applying a transfer magnetic field, a servo pattern is transferred onto the magnetic disk medium and thus pre-formatting is performed.
In a pre-formatted magnetic disk medium manufactured in the abovementioned manner, it is ensured that sector forming positions (and sector numbers) on the front surface match sector forming positions (and sector numbers) on the rear surface.
Meanwhile, in the manufacturing management of pre-formatted magnetic disk media in the conventional magnetic transfer device as described above, if error analysis or quality control is to be performed for each transfer condition, each magnetic disk medium needs to be identified on a transfer condition basis. However, since all manufactured magnetic disk media have the same structure, it is not an easy task to identify each magnetic disk medium. Particularly, once the magnetic disk medium is installed in a magnetic disk device, error analysis performed in association with the transfer conditions requires identifying means of some kind separately. For example, as such identifying means, a database may be build in which the magnetic disk device and the magnetic disk medium are associated with each other, an identification code may be assigned to each magnetic disk medium, or the like. In any case, such means lead to an increase in the manufacturing cost.